Friday, January 30, 2009

Canowindra (pronounced Can-noun-dra, not the commonly usedCan-oh-win-dra) is an historic township located near Cowra in thecentral west of New South Wales, Australia in Cabonne Shire.

Captured by Ben Hall and his gang - the story says, to show contempt for the cops & troopers. But let us imagine a bit more - let us imagine that the Hall Gang captured the town in an attempt to create the First Lachlan River Valley Soviet.

Late it was in the day, the bright sunSetting off flies and floating soilSpring Summer melting slide into oneEach other framing ceaseless toil.

Bold daring-doo this was the brashestDance ever sung in New South WalesA cloud of horses to raise more dustBlinding covering the sands of tails.

The one lone duck taken in the increaseStampeding horses screaming voicesNot one hurt marched into jail the geeseOpen a new world with our choices.

Crowning curtains of orange flame rushing skywardsDancing from tree top to tree top clouds of flameParched black blankets of ground - death gives lifeThe heat opens the hard casings and the seeds fallTimes are a burn makes what it needs and rain falls

Saturday, January 24, 2009

"What seems beautiful to me, what I should like to write, is a bookabout nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would beheld together by the strength of its style, just as the earth,suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its support; a book which would have almost no subject, or at least in which thesubject would be almost invisible, if such a thing is possible."Gustave Flaubert, Correspondence.

Substituting poem for book, I find this quote very liberating to how I write. However some may say this is a very bourgeois manner ofwriting. Setting myself up a straw man for the sake of thisargument. Let me try to explain how I oppose this idea.

One of the definitions of the word bourgeois is one whose interest it is to support the status quo. It is this usage of the word that is of most interest to me in this exercise.

It seems fairly obvious that the ruling classes control language andthat they use this control to entrap and downpress the workingpeople. One of the uses of language is the relentless demand on thenarrative flow. This counterfeit river that flows from A to B, thatmoves from rags to riches.

Life, however is a much stronger stranger than this simple narrativearc will have us understand. Language creates consciousness, and itfollows that this bourgeois hegemonistic control of daily life andculture controls and moulds language and art to suit their own ends(indeed this can be seen as a definition of hegemony).

It is this bourgeois control of language, and therefore consciousness, that creates the mind-forg'd manacles of our oppression. It is these manacles that we must self consciously over come and over throw. For it is precisely this mental slavery that causes the great mass of working people to think that without God there is no morality, that without work they will have no identity, that without coercion there will be no happiness.

Language, a poem about nothing, a poem that hangs with no support inthe void. This is what I am striving towards, this is what JohnKinsella and Tracy Ryan refer to when they say "every poem we writeshould be a form of resistance, an act of linguistic disobedience."This is what will allow us to write "beyond good and evil", this iswhat will allow us to move beyond imperialist ideas of ownership andcoercion.

Time, history, relationships are the matter of literature, and in some ways literature is greater than nonfiction or even philosophy, for only literature can talk about how life really is, how life should be. Time is not, history is not, the straight and narrow journey from breakfast to lunch to dinner, rather it is the dream distortions of Finnegan. History does not have as its horizon the simple Aristotelian unities of the television studio and of market based book publishers, but rather a deeper understanding of history and relationships can only be found in the convoluted signature of Shandy.

I write, as do all artists, mainly for myself, but also for self aware proletarians. I write in a way that is often called pretentious. (A label I am happy to wear, for to be pretentious is to pretend, to play, and if a poet can not play that what is a heaven for?) I write in a way that allows me to survey all of the history (natural and human) of language and appropriate for my art all 'that which being seen pleases me'. I write in a way that, in defiance of the petty academic poetry cliques, is not direct nor aimed for 'working people' (all of which is code for banal and trivial). I write understanding the unity to be more than a mere harmony, but rather a complete interpenetration. I write in a manner which says proudly, 'let the common reader be damned'. I write knowing that the artist is meant to be something more than an entertainer.

I & I might call dis a collage, being an old timey web 1.0 sort of guy. (or maybe even a punky reggae party). Younger gen Y types might refer to it as a mash up. (Still others might just be honest and direct & call it a big old ball o' crap!?! (a pox on 'em i says)). Marley, Blake, Strummer, (ply upon ply), Dedalus & a bit of Lawson all hacked up together as a treat for eye and ear and brainpan.

Wrote it one morning while the kids ran riot throughout the house, and sally slept and jesus wept.Emancipate yourselfFrom mind forg'd mental Manacles of Slavery.

Stef, she tapped her head,Her forehead, with her hand.It is here we must killBoth Rome and Babylon.

Down in Sydney for a conference, wandering around martin place, drunk. the homeless, the war memorial, the dirt and filth, the towers to money of money. Lest we forget, so we never have to remember immolations.

Went to the rally in front of the Israel and USA embassies to support the people of GAZA. Not a bad turn out for Canberra. There were quite a few coppers of various types in riot gear and with tasers and with big hitting sticks and with pistols and with dogs and with cameras. the coppers scared my kids. the whole scene made me proud to live in a democracy. one that has to go to such lengths to protect the REAL terrorists from the people. So i got this old(ish) poem, a rather brutal SALO piece about rulers and priests et al raping and killing children. not a one to one mapping of the situation in GAZA - but close enough and more than most of my poet friends are saying...

And the joyceful drudgesAnd the urchins of dickensRush the bench - chanting frothmouthFlay Him Slay Him

What the Dickens: Flay HimDrudges are dublin': Slay Him

Stab Him Jab Him Artful thrustingOf the pelvis. Drag Him Drug Him Dutch tars high on Nutmeg jump into the sea.

Like David the urchins scramble afterA hung of corrupt fleshy flesh. Adultery - Murder - the drudgesSing out stiffening hands. King of the Jews Hughson - they Shout out in unison.

And the Judge General bangsHis rommy guild gavelThis hammer of justice smashesInto One Million lilting piecesRefracting Rainbows across the Whitewashed (to cover the rupture) walls - ((But modern science of assembly canDetect the splash of watery whey) (No Matter how bleak or well washed))

Sunday, January 4, 2009

OK! this one has it all! From the Korean Police Action to Shane Warne to Dave & Ansel Collins to Elton John to Hamlet to Venus in Furs to The Oxen of The Sun - it just goes on and on - and all along it builds up a hatred of Capitalism and Militarism.

It is not just greed, like some say, that has caused the down turn. Economic crisis is not a moral equation! (we must live beyond good & evil).

It is deeper, it is the very logic of Capital that leads to these wars and these down turns and to this world of macho hero bullshit.

Stinking dave dove son of Gratitude - 'tis gunners Be a long long triremeI am a rick rock let us be man& Mars bars a place to raise Your kit clubbing kats. She salt hummed andSealed one inch of the sobbingBastini life of lies.

And she let mat lush herCocksacs upupon his ucrankPoldy land (sledded and none such)All wit furry fairy head hitsLoud whoreson cries of whippetsAnd long wimp its wimp it goodGround zero of the magnificentLife drawing warne timeSeverin AM - I am the magnificent(She pissed posh upon hisAught ought workswerving) She shotAnd hauled at the lunatic tunaTic tank dough of your Dribble drabble. She larfedHis hat slum salt hum into hisBurning hot sun eye balledAnd sheer sworded never to swearAnd hit him agin gain this on The lam thus two Severins And two strep troats accostingStrangers for accounting.

Be Gone! Monocle TheistsGee Borne! Monocle Theists

This time she found oneFrom Aria loud land - gave her One good old smack, a virtualPaddy whack, upon the guildOf her girdled muddle draped In like a barb marley snack Of pasta spud a Doodle Doo Unless and until the first Sargent Left tenant Piggy O'Piggies And Cuntstable Clitoris Apprehended dis here red ulcerFarce forced ulster red hand.